Wiley Post's Impact On The World Of Aviation

Wiley Post

Wiley Post is an American aviator. During his time he set a milestone record,he discovered a new way of flying faster and, he was one of the first people to fly at high altitudes. He is known as a legend in the world of aviation, but he is not very well known. The impact he made on the world of aviation is seen today.

Wiley Post was young when he decided that he wanted to be a pilot. A job that he acquired during his life was a skydiver and he did many solo jumps but he knew it was not for him. Later he become a pilot for the same company but was injured on a job. That injury cost him his right eye. The horrible incident may have cost him his eye, but he used the money from the accident to buy an airplane.

Now that he was handicap he found a job as a private pilot with some difficulty. The owner allowed him to use the plane for aviation races. Between his injury and a year later he met Harold Gatty. Meeting Gatty was going to be the start of his career. They both “smashed the record for fastest around-the-world flight...covering more than 15,400 miles in 8 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes....The feat made Post and Gatty famous” (Maranzani) .

It was during his “...experimental high-altitude flight on 7 December 1934, Wiley manoeuvred his aeroplane into a fast moving air, current, resulting in significant increase in ground speed.”(Maranzani). He noted the higher the plane goes the faster it goes. Later this phenomenon was called the jet stream.The jet stream allows any plane such as “...a Pan-Am aircraft…[to make a ]...flight from Tokyo to Honolulu in just over eleven hours; this was almost seven hours quicker than conventional flying had previously allowed”(Jet Stream Discovered). Now commercial flight are able to have more flights during the day as before which allows them to make more money for every ticket they sale and they are able to save fuel which save